Tuesday, September 8, 2015

MPUSD will have a special report on special education tonight

If you're interested in special education, and you live in the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District, you should not miss tonight's report.

Two former administrators from El Dorado County and leading experts in special education will provide a summary of an independent review recently conducted of the MPUSD Special Education Program, and will present an overview of the following (according to the agenda:

District’s current special education program and present recommendations about staffing, least restrictive environment programming, response to intervention and instruction, including a review of the continuum of placement options for students with disabilities and financial consideration (cost containment and maximization of income).

Make recommendations concerning issues related to operation of regional programs, previously operated by Monterey County Office of Education, and transferred to Monterey Peninsula Unified School District several years ago. The review will analyze these programs to determine if the current structure is programmatically and financially, the optimum structure.

Determine how the District compares to statewide and SELPA data with respect to pupil count, special education income, special education expenditures, and local contribution to special education. A multi-year analysis will be prepared that includes comparative data to determine trends and areas that the District may want to focus on to a greater extent to contain special education costs.

Present on how the district is developing implementation strategies, considering financial and educational benefits related to the recommendations.

The meeting's open session begins at 7 p.m. You can watch it online, although sometimes the transmission suffers from technical difficulties and you risk missing the juciest parts.